What would happen to an ad agency circa 1969 that became appropriated by a cell of black radicals led by a gravel-voiced man with an affection for Fidel Castro duds? Watching "Putney Swope" doesn't offer much of an answer, but its quicksilver style and dark humor makes for a fascinating if frustrating experience.A Manhattan agency struggles with loser clients, less than a million a day in gross earnings, and a CEO splayed dead in the boardroom. To replace him, the board members (proscribed from voting for themselves) all cast their secret-ballot votes for the board's token black, Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) knowing he won't win. Guess what? After taking control, Swope decides he'd rather sink the boat than rock it, replacing the white guys with various "brothers" and filling the airwaves with tasteless but surprisingly effective commercials.A counterculture sleeper hit when it came out in 1969, "Putney Swope" is not a story so much as a loose collection of blackout sketches tied to the strange title character, who has moral qualms about marketing booze, tobacco, and war toys but treats both staff and clients with naked contempt.Confronting a group of ingratiating clients, Swope (whose voice is dubbed throughout the film very gratingly by writer-director Robert Downey Sr.) demands a million each in cash, no please or thank you."Give us the name of your product, what its supposed to do, then take a walk," he says. "We don't need lames in the hallway.""Putney Swope" starts strong, opening with the white board members and Swope taking a meeting from a strange guy in jackboots, Nazi regalia, and a motorcycle jacket emblazoned with the words: "MENSA Chapter." He turns out to be a consultant who gives a four-sentence speech about beer and is gone. Then they get to arguing. One objects to Swope's recommendation about dropping war toys: "Deny a young boy the right to have a toy gun, and you'll suppress his destructive urges and he'll turn out to be a homosexual, or worse."Soon after the takeover occurs, however, the film loses its way. Downey seems at a loss as to what to do with Swope, and shifts the story into a series of vignettes about black radicalism and commercial parodies. The parodies run on too long and often misfire. The race angle is more interestingly presented, not so much because Downey is really exploring it so much as using it as a handy third- rail for his politically incorrect comedy. It's bold and daring but more than a little gormless, too.One worker suggests replacing coffee breaks with watermelon breaks. As two black men drag out a white client, he exclaims that he feels like an Oreo cookie. As he makes love to a woman in her bedroom, Swope pulls down her Sidney Poitier poster."Every single account pulled out!""I wish I pulled out! Too many dependents, baby!"Johnson seems lost in the central role, which I blame on Downey taking away his voice. Downey claimed he had to do this because Johnson kept forgetting his lines. If so, why didn't Downey let Johnson dub himself?Downey also spends too much time on Antonio Fargas, who wears Arab get-up (Swope: "Who do you think you are? Lawrence of Nigeria?") and talks a blue streak in what Downey says in his DVD commentary was largely improvisation. Fargas has the right in-your-face tone for this film, but his talking for effect becomes more wearying than funny.The best things about "Putney Swope" are the way it moves (credit editor Bud S. Smith and Downey) and the score by Charley Cuva, which is often brilliant. As a time capsule, it's fascinating, and you will laugh more than once. But it leaves an empty feeling.

This movie got better with time. I can't believe that it has been forty years since I saw this at the age of 15. Yes, that's right. Movie ratings were not yet a reality, so any teenager could walk into any movie. Imagine what it was like for a kid my age to see both Midnight Cowboy and Putney Swope in the same year. Imagine the times. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King has just been killed but the following summer had a man walking on the moon and Woodstock. Putney Swope was the Woodstock nation's chance to stick it to the man. You'll see where Robert Downey, Jr. got his sardonic brilliance. His old man was an instant hero to kids like me. No punches are pulled in this classic, and aging hippies will rejoice when they relive this era. Hopefully, new flower children will be emboldened by it, and this current era of fascism will come under the same scrutiny my era was subjected to.

The film portrays the capitalist establishment as a bunch of corrupt buffoons. Putney Swope, however, is different. It's a Horatio Alger story of a black man who finally made it to the top. However, Putney still has a few values that conflict with the capitalist status quo. He's not against making money, however. In fact, he's very good at it. But the difference is his values. He doesn't make ads for alcohol, tobacco or war toys. He has his principles. But eventually, capitalism wins and his greed takes over. He starts making ads that are sexist and eventually makes ads for war toys. After a schism with his radical Muslim friend his principles go down the tubes. It's a good commentary on the nature of capitalism and the role race plays in it.

When someone refers to the independent cinema realm in the United States it's often inferred that it means the filmmaker or people behind the project had much more creative freedom and did what they wanted. This, today, is not really always the case unless someone is a solid "auteur" and creative freedom still comes with the caveat that one has to find distribution with one of the independent divisions of major studios or by getting picked up somehow for some kind of low-level deal at a worthwhile film festival. But Putney Swope, Robert Downey Sr's film about a tough-as-nails African-American accidentally promoted to head advertising guru at a production company, *is* independent cinema, the kind of work that went right along with the likes or Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Cassavetes Faces at the same time of getting no real typical studio distribution but causing waves, kicking ass and taking names in the cinema world. For all its moments that are rough and crude, it's unforgettable.It's also a film that is funny, very and excruciatingly funny. Sometimes the sense of humor is just so ridiculous it's nearly impossible not to laugh, from the mere appearance of the President Mimeo with his wife to lines of dialog from the advertisements Swope's team puts together like "I can't eat an air conditioner" in a real "soul" voice. It is as smart as the audience it is aiming at, which is anyone with two brain cells to put together who can see that this work isn't offensive or *too* shocking because it's meant to rattle the cage, and it does this pretty well in the first five minutes. Once that's past Downey Sr goes on his blitz of sorts as far as being a filmmaker with nothing to lose: his protagonist is part Fidel Castro, part Isaac Hayes circa 1972 (and yes it's 1969 in the film) and part hard-assed ad exec with a firing streak to make Mr. Spacely on the Jetsons look kind. And don't forget those side characters, dear God.There's so many memorable lines and moments that it's hard to keep track. From maybe the most hilarious botched assassination attempt in any movie to the one ad for "Face-Off" skin cream that includes lines that would give South Park a run for its dirty-mouth money, to just little asides with the one guy from Jack Hill's movies playing the Muslim who keeps giving lip to Swope and that one boy with the the nun who curses up a storm and impresses Swope in a swift stroke. It's a pretty direct message about media and advertising, but there's also a lot of powerful moments where it just hits the nail on the head about racism in America, sometimes without having to do more than a gesture and sometimes with doing something HUGE like having black panther types going this way and that around Swope's advertising regime. And for a low-budget production (I mean super low, hence the comparison to Night of the Living Dead and Faces) Downey got some really good actors, all non-union, and it's hard to imagine that some of them might have had their first time on camera here.It should be mentioned that Downey's style doesn't make it perfect: it is crude and sometimes too crazy and dated for its own good, and I'm sure I didn't get some of the underlying humor of a couple of the ads since I'm from a full generation after these ads were aired (albeit the "Miss Redneck Jersey" was definitely not lost on me). In general though this is one of the finest of its time period, a satire that stings and a feature with a predominantly black cast that is all too knowing of what comes from an excess of power, regardless of skin color. It is, as someone might say, "good s***."